CBS.com Prepares To Host HTML5 Videos For iPad

The iPad launches on April 3, 2010 for both USA and brave Canadians heading down to the USA to pick it up. With the release date so close, iPad plans are quickly wrapping up for the debut.

In the days before the iPad launch, CBS, a major television network, is updating their website to provide video playback for the iPad, which means no Flash support (who needs Flash anyway?!).

Apple has been a strong opponent of Adobe’s resource-heavy Flash plugin, and is touting HTML5 for the future (like the rumoured Hulu app).

Some investigating this week by TheOtherMacBlog.com revealed that the CBS.com website streamed different versions of video when the iPad SDK Simulator was used. CBS.com’s website began to display rather odd “iPad – test” video links in place of normally available content.

MacRumors took to the scene and investigated and found that clicking on the “iPad” labeled links in a normal desktop web browser brought users to the usual Flash versions of the videos. But, if users visit CBS.com using the iPad SDK Simulator, users are sent to a different version of the CBS video (seen below).

The new version of the videos do not play yet but seems to be running off of HTML5. For those that do not know, Apple has been a strong supporter of HTML5 and has suggested it as an alternative solution to Flash.

In the case of CBS.com, it seems the television network will provide both HTML5 for iPad (and iPhone/iPod Touch) and Flash for everyone else. If CBS.com is taking the initiative to cater to Flash-less iPad audiences, this could very well cause a domino effect and inspire other major networks to do the same.